


Light and Dark

by cmonlauraweremarriednow



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmonlauraweremarriednow/pseuds/cmonlauraweremarriednow
Summary: Mulder is alone in the dark.





	Light and Dark

Fox Mulder had never been afraid of the dark, not even as a child. He had never checked under his bed for monsters or left the closet light on at night. But now, now he keeps all the lights on. He can’t sleep without them, though it’s not so much sleep as long stretches of harried obsession broken by bouts of inevitable collapsing exhaustion.

He avoids sleep. Because when he sleeps he dreams of her. And when he dreams of her, he wakes up. And when he wakes up, there’s this fleeting infinitesimal moment where he forgets she’s gone. And when he forgets she’s gone, he has to remember that she is. And it hurts, viscerally, every damn time.

The lights do nothing to temper the achromatic gloom that has settled over the house, in his bones, around his soul. No matter how many he turns on. It’s the wrong kind of light to drive out this sort of darkness.

She had been there during his darkest moments: the murder of his father, the discovery of Samantha, the suicide of his mother; when everything else had been taken from him, she remained. The one tiny source of light in his darkness, even when he didn’t deserve her. She was his sun, his constant, his touchstone, the point around which his fucked up world revolved. And when she left she took the light with her.

And now, now he is alone in the darkness. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with the cryptids that lurk in the corners of his mind clawing at him with their clammy fingers trying to drag him to their underworld. The creatures that dwell in the shadows hate the light. Because the light illuminates them and reveals what they really are. But his light is gone. And his shadow dwellers have returned.

The shadow dwellers call to him, sirens luring him to join them in the final darkness. He’s thought about it; he’s seriously considered it; he’s almost gone through with it, so many times. The coil of rope in the closet, the antifreeze in the garage, the gun in the drawer. But he doesn’t deserve death, even that wouldn’t be enough.

He deserves this suffering of his own making, penance for what he put her through, what he took from her. She could have had a house not hidden in the middle of nowhere, a child she didn’t have to give up, a life not built on running; she deserved that. She deserves everything. But instead the fates dealt her the greatest of misfortunes and crossed her path with his.

She could no longer live with the stranglehold he put on her very existence. A single, final kiss on his forehead and she disappeared into the darkness.

The bare bulb porch light burns in the night, a glowing ember against the coal black of the sky. He sits on the sagging top stair; he watches for the sweep of headlights; he listens for the crunch of gravel. He stares into the shadows on the horizon waiting for the sunlight to reappear, though he knows that’s not the kind of light he needs either.

Every night is the same. Front porch. Bare bulb. Sit. Watch. Listen. Wait.

He pushes himself up onto creaking joints and turns back towards the house. He pauses at the threshold he once carried her over. Hesitant fingers reach up and pull the cord, enveloping him in the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me the happiest clam in all the sea  
> You can also follow me on Tumblr [@realmofextremepossibility!](http://realmofextremepossibility.tumblr.com)


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